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Guardian Angel

GUARDIAN ANGEL, My Story, My Britain, charts the journey of a journalist and writer who moved from darling of the left to champion of the moral high ground. This memoir of her personal and professional life
reflects the cultural changes in society over more than three decades.

The book is among the opening titles released by Melanie's new
publishing company, Melanie Phillips Electric Media. It can be purchased
from emBooks.com as well as from amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and iBooks.

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Government advice goes to pot

Young people caught burgling houses or committing grievous
bodily harm should be spared criminal prosecution to prevent their futures
being blighted, says a government adviser.

Ok, he didn’t say that. What Professor Les Iversen, chairman
of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, actually
told MPs was that young people caught with small amounts of drugs such as
cannabis should be spared criminal prosecution to prevent their futures being
blighted by criminal records. These could stop them getting into university or
buying a house later in life. He recommended instead that they should have their
driving licences confiscated or be sent on an awareness course.

The principle behind what he said, however, is just the same
as for other crimes. It involves a repudiation of law and justice in favour of
the interests of the criminal which would be jeopardised if he were made to pay
the price for breaking the law.

What an extraordinary attitude by a public official! The
principle would destroy the very basis of the rule of law. If a government
adviser were to suggest it for any other crime, you wouldn’t see his heels for
dust.

But drug crime seems to be in a category of its own. And
that’s because the ignorant, self-serving and socially nihilistic idea has
taken broad hold within our governing class that the problem for society is not
illegal drugs but the law that makes them illegal.

Despite the Advisory Committee’s insistence that it is not
suggesting decriminalisation, this would be precisely the effect of such
‘diversion’ from prosecution. It has stated that possession of drugs should
remain a criminal offence But Iverson believes law should not be enforced
because, as he said in 2003, ‘Cannabis
should be legalised not just decriminalised’.

This is an utterly irresponsible view. Cannabis is a danger
not just to the mental and physical health of the user – its implications in
the onset of psychosis are terrifying – but to society from the user,
through a range of antisocial behaviour from inertia to aggression.

The government has already made clear that it rejects these proposals
by Iverson and the Advisory Committee. The question is, however, why ministers persist
with these advisers at all, since this committee has long demonstrated that its
domination by drug legalisers renders it not fit for purpose.

In 2009 its then chairman, Professor David Nutt, was sacked
after claiming that horse-riding was more dangerous than taking Ecstasy, and
then accusing ministers of ‘devaluing’ scientific evidence on cannabis which
supposedly was less alarmist.

Over the years, the Advisory Committee has operated less as
a dispassionate evaluator of scientific evidence and more as a Trojan horse for
drug legalisation at the heart of government.

Ministers may have responded robustly on this occasion but
the fact is that they have not reversed the government’s disastrous embrace of
‘harm reduction’ policy, which is the thin end of the drug legalisation wedge.

One thing Iverson said was indeed all too correct: that the
police are already taking his recommended approach by giving out thousands of
fines and warnings for cannabis possession. In other words, the police have in
effect brought about decriminalisation of cannabis. That’ why the ‘war on
drugs’ that we are constantly told is being lost is not actually being waged at
all. For years now, we have had an unacknowledged cannabis decriminalisation
policy.

The most likely reason why Professor Iverson and the
Advisory Committee remain government advisers is that ministers are unwilling
to bit the bullet and decide once and for all theat illegal drugs, including
cannabis, are illegal for an overwhelmingly persuasive reason – and enforce the
law properly to protect society from this scourge.

About Melanie

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist and author. She is best known
for her controversial column about political and social issues which
currently appears in the Daily Mail. Awarded the Orwell Prize for
journalism in 1996, she is the author of All Must Have Prizes, an
acclaimed study of Britain's educational and moral crisis, which
provoked the fury of educationists and the delight and relief of
parents.